Sacha Baron Cohen won't be playing Freddie Mercury after all

Well, as it turns out, Sacha Baron Cohen will, in fact, not be playing Freddie Mercury in the upcoming sanctioned Queen biopic. Deadlineis reporting that Cohen has exited the project he’s been involved with since 2010, allegedly because “the band wanted to make more of a PG movie about Queen” while Cohen (wisely) “was counting on a gritty R-rated tell-all centered around the gay singer.” Cohen had been butting heads with the band for years, having brought in everyone from writer Peter Morgan to director David Fincher to work on the project but having them all soundly rejected by the remaining members of Queen.

Given that no one in their right mind would actually want to watch a PG movie about Freddie Mercury and/or Queen, it’s fair to hold out hope that maybe, just maybe Cohen will manage to make an unauthorized biopic, but that seems fairly unlikely at this point.